May
by Happy Voltaire
Summary: Willy Wonka has closed up his factory to outsiders, "Nobody ever goes in, and nobody ever comes out", or so the saying goes. Unfortunately for Wonka the FDA doesn't exactly approve. (Updated)
1. Prologue and Chapter 1

Title: May Sonnate

Rating: PG - PG-13ish maybe

Disclaimer: I don't own Charlie/Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, nor do I claim to own them.

I dedicate this story to "May". Although I overly exaggerated some parts, don't be angry. It makes for a good story. I do have more faith in you than that just so you know.

Please don't forget me.

Prologue

Her name was May Sonnate. She grew up in a small town and played in this small town with all her friends. She dated boys in this small town and wrote poems in this small town. She went to school in this small town until her graduation day in the spring. She moved out and ended up going to college in an even smaller town with a run-down train station near the edge. Occasionally from her dorm she could hear the whistling of the train.

Occasionally.

Usually her mind drifted so far out of its normal state of consciousness that she neglected to hear the whistle of the train or the screeching of the brakes. Instead of hearing the train she heard the voice of the prose settled upon her lap, the gently blowing wind lapping at her face from an adjacent window left carelessly opened. She was a dreamer extraordinaire in her day, her little fantasies taking the place of the harsh realities that surrounded her.

She was going to be a teacher. May Sonnate took great joy in seeing happy children learn something from her. However this was not to be for May Sonnate, who after four years of being drilled the proper way to stick something in a child's head went a completely different route and became a government worker. At first it seemed that social services would become her occupation, but years past and soon she fell into the ever-exciting field of health and safety inspections.

Her life became dull and unhappy. She stopped dreaming and settled into a world of gray.

She was my best friend. We grew up in that very same small town together but when the time came to pick colleges I decided on the city. Small towns always bothered me. Through it all, the turbulence of growing up and the resounding decisions of adulthood, we managed to keep in touch. I always said she knew me best. She always stated that we were the same person. It's hard to loose touch with someone who is the exact same person as you.

One day we were sitting in our favorite, all-encompassing book/movie/music/café giant of a store sipping some coffee-laden beverage or another when she put down her cup and looked at me with the saddest eyes I had ever seen. OK, perhaps not the saddest, but surely in the top-ten of saddest eyes. She looked absolutely down-trodden, as if she was hopelessly lost or some other awful tragedy that bothers Man on a daily basis. I sighed and ran my hand through my hair, softly putting down my own drink and pushing aside the magazine I had been perusing.

"My my May, what is the matter?" I breathed, my own eyes still drifting towards the cover of the magazine.

"What happened to me?" She asked earnestly. I shrugged and reached into my coat pocket hoping to find a piece of gum or stray mint. As usual her faded blonde hair had fallen out of it's neat and prim style and was forming small little curls that poked up from behind her ears. I always noticed little details like that.

Upon finding a piece of gum I unwrapped it and popped it into my mouth, my dear friend May still sitting across from me in her dejected state. "Yes, what happened to you?" I asked, not wanting to take part in her little pity session but feeling like an absolute awful human being for not doing so.

"You know what I mean." She replied, eyes downcast and lips clamped together thoughtfully.

"I do." I said simply. She had stopped dreaming and sealed her secret self away, sometimes even from myself. This couldn't be ignored and I didn't try to deny it. The mint-flavored gum rolled around my tongue and between my teeth comfortingly and took my mind off of her melancholy mood. "But what has brought about this state of reflection May?"

May paused and her eyes left the table, venturing about the small café as if in search of something. "I get to travel." She eventually told me. "My boss told me that I was picked out to do a special job."

"And is this a bad thing?" I wondered.

"Not really. Well, no and yes. No because it is a wonderful opportunity, yes because I can't stop thinking about what my life would have been like if I had… " May said trailing off, her worn fingers gently drumming on the faux-stone table. She wore a couple of rings on her fingers, none of them expensive or given to her as gifts of admiration and love. Her nails were polished with a creamy pink, but were chipped or flaked off in certain places or even nervously bitten off. I never remembered May for being a nail-biter, that was always me, not her.

I stared at her for the longest time, wondering if she would indulge me further or if I would have to drag the news out of her. Eventually she stood up and walked towards the cashier and rows of candy bars that stood in front of her. She stooped down low and looked through the selections before grabbing one, straightening out, paying the girl, pocketing the candy, and returning to our table.

"Where did I stray? Where did I go wrong?" She continued to mutter to the table. Suddenly she picked her head up and looked directly at me. "When did I loose my dream?" She asked me, her voice strained and confused. I wasn't sure if she was exactly looking for an answer, but I decided that I would try to deliver her one anyway.

"The day you grew up." I replied. This seemed to shock her, take her aback if you will. "The day you decided to compromise your dream for reality and comfort."

At first her face was hard to read but as I stated previously, May Sonnate was the exact same person as me, and soon her face broke out into a beautifully meek smile that creased the sides of her eyes. "I was thinking the exact same thing." She whispered.

I leaned forward as if she was going to tell me a secret. "And what caused you to come up with this conclusion?" I asked her.

May, always having a flair for the dramatic, held up a finger and reached into her pocket where she had placed the candy bar bought previously. She pulled out the chocolate bar, opened it up, and handed me a piece as she bit into a morsel herself. We enjoyed the chocolate bar silently, I puzzled beyond belief of course. After the bar was devoured she flattened the crumpled wrapped on the table and straightened it out with her palm, pointing to it with one of her ringed-fingers.

The wrapper, aside from being your typical every-day wrapper, was emblazoned with the trademark of Wonka Industries. I shrugged having seen one on the ground or flying through the air almost everyday in the city. She smiled and sighed and grabbed the wrapper away from my eyes reprovingly. "I have in my possession a first-class train ticket that will bring me to the heart of this." She said, flashing the wrapper in front of my eyes once again.

"I don't follow you." I said with what was probably a very confused look on my face.

May leaned forward and lowered her voice as if she was afraid someone was listening in on our conversation. "I was ordered to do a full-scale inspection of the Wonka Factory. On Monday morning I am to report to the gates of the factory and I must be let in or else Mr. William Wonka will have to deal with the FDA."

I gasped and then quickly covered it up with a cough before we started getting the strange looks. Once I overcame my initial surprise I was able to ask her more questions. "But I heard-" but May was too fast for me.

"Heard that he lets no one in. Yes, it's true. Which is why the FDA wants in on the factory."

"Do they suspect him of something?"

"No, it's all standard protocol. The FDA's just concerned that if we let Wonka get away without passing inspection then they'd have to make exceptions for everyone. But according to sources Wonka's too afraid to let anyone in because of lack of secrecy and whatnot. Of course as an inspector I don't report on any of that sort of thing, just health and safety. Wonka has no choice but to let me in."

During all of this I had been sitting across from her with my hands under my chin, utterly enthralled by her tale. Wonka had been a legend in our own time, his secrecy his ultimate legacy. "So how did you get picked for the job? I mean, people must have been vying for this chance to get into the famous Wonka Factory."

May shrugged. "Picked from a hat if you'd believe it. How professional." She smirked. "Dumb luck of course."

I grinned and sat back in my chair. "Or fate." I remarked to her. "It's like a dream. A remarkable dream."

She stared at me for quite some time before nodding slowly. "Exactly." She murmured. "But I'd rather think of it as just another ordinary job."

May asked me if I would drop her off and pick her up at the train station when the time came. I, like any good friend would, agreed and when the day arrived I made my way to her small apartment and picked her up. She greeted me in her work attire which was the type of suit that you'd expect from any business man or woman. Her hair was pulled back and fixed tightly at the nape of her neck, her pinstriped suit properly buttoned and ironed, her tie fixed squarely in the middle of her white shirt like a true professional.

I always hated to see her in those suits.

She sat beside me in the car, half relaxed, half tensed, her white fingers clutching a slick black briefcase that was placed in her lap. She had no visible jewelry on her person and had on a pair of reading glasses with silver rims that made her eyes look enormous. The poor girl had lost the ability to read without the use of spectacles in college.

As two people who grew up together there rarely was a moment when awkward silence was a problem for us, yet silence managed to creep into the car on the ride to the train station. For some reason words failed me as they had never before. I almost allowed her to step out of the car and into the train station without uttering a word before I pulled myself together.

"May, call me when you're coming home." I told her. It wasn't exactly a brilliant statement, but it would do.

She nodded at me and got out of my car, closing my door with an accidental slam. She leaned through the open passenger-side window and said goodbye to me.

"Please." I said, catching her interest before she could walk away. I didn't know what to expect for her. I did know, with all the uncertainties thrown away behind my shoulder, that there was something about this factory that had made the friend I truly knew try to shine through the tough exterior, even if for a brief moment. "Please May," I repeated, "Promise me you'll tell me everything."

She smiled and nodded. "I promise." She assured me.

She kept that promise.

End of Prologue

* * *

Chapter One: The Rain Room

May's footsteps made echoes on the rough pavement as she approached the grand factory.

Clickida-click Clickida-click Clickida-click.

She tried not to swing her briefcase about in order to keep the appearance of professionalism. It wasn't tough, after years of intense practice she admitted to herself that she had become quite good at being boring.

The Clickida-click of her heeled shoes slowly stopped until they dissipated into the looming darkness that was the Wonka Factory. It was early morning, perhaps around six, and the sun was not yet up. The train ride had been about three or-so hours long so she was eager for the walking she would have to do inside the building. Judging from the shear size of the factory she figured that she would be doing a lot of walking, a lot of walking indeed.

She had stopped in front of the factory's main gate, noticing that there was no employee entrance, no guard at post. Already it seemed as though the rumors circulating about the factory were true. Unsure of what to do she searched the gate for some type of buzzer or bell that would allow her to gain access into the factory. She found none. She rapped unsurely at the gate itself, hoping that someone would hear her and come to her assistance.

She tapped at the bars again, this time more desperately. How humiliating it would be for her to head back to the office and tell her boss that she couldn't even find a way in! Fortunately one of the main wooden doors opened up suddenly as if a gust of wind had pushed it open. Out stepped a man that resembled a London barrister, bowler hat and all. Before stepping out from under the alcove he stuck out his arm sharply and paused a moment before heading back inside.

"Oh no." May had thought to herself. "Heaven help me if he doesn't come back. I shall have to scale the wall." But the man did reappear, only this time with a black umbrella over his head. He waltzed over towards May and tipped his hat.

"Looks like rain." He said knowingly, still positioned on the other side of the metal bars.

May looked up but didn't see a cloud in the sky. "Uh, sure." She lied as she fiddled with the ID in her coat pocket. She brought it out quickly and flashed it to the man in the bowler hat. "My name is May Sonnate, I'm from the Food and Drug Administration. I've been sent here in order to-"

"Inspect the factory, yes, I know." The man finished quietly. He snapped his fingers and the gate quickly swung open, May having to jump out of the way or be smacked with the metal bars. She caught her breath and stared at the man in the black bowler hat. He returned her gaze and when she did not move he waved her in impatiently. "Come come. Haven't got all day." He said, snapping his fingers again when May made it inside the complex.

She followed him and figured they were going to enter the building by way of the door she had seen him exit, however he passed this entrance and continued heading towards the rear of the factory. He was a lean man, very tall and very gaunt, but he moved rapidly and May found it difficult to keep up with him. He continued to hold the umbrella over his head even though the sun was peaking over the horizon.

As they walked the building began to take strange shapes and turns, only noticeable of course to those once inside the gate. She tried her best to keep up with the barrister before he twisted his way right out of her sight. She paused. Was loosing a man dressed entirely in black with an umbrella really that easy? May looked to her left and then to her right but still saw no bowler hat.

Suddenly there was a tap on her shoulder and she screamed and jumped in a responsive reflex. May looked behind her and was sure her face was white with shock: there was the man with the bowler hat.

"Keep up please." He said to her, clasping her right arm in his left at the elbow. He began to walk very fast, May practically trotting in order to avoid being dragged. "Mr. Wonka wants this whole business taken care of as quickly as possible. He doesn't allow visitors to his factory and he especially doesn't like the idea of someone from the government poking their little head in."

"I assure you," May replied in a pant, "I'm only here to do my job. The FDA frowns upon poor health and safety, that's all I'm here to inspect. Nothing more."

The tall man had brought them to an equally as tall wooden door which swung open before them as if it was trained to do so. "Mr. Wonka cannot be so trusting." Replied the man matter-of-factly.

The man continued to walk May through the door and down a white corridor, putting away his umbrella as he led her to another door painted with the words, "DO NOT ENTER (except for those who belong which in that case you certainly are welcomed)". He took the handle of his umbrella and placed it into the keyhole, turned it twice, and then pushed open the door with the flick of his wrist. To May's astonishment inside the room water poured from the ceiling like rain. The man continued to pull at May's elbow, disregarding her cry of protest.

He finally let go of her arm and went to a table. He took off his hat and hung it up on the wall as if he didn't even feel the rain on his head, his soaked clothing making a squishing sound as he went about his business. He walked about the small room and gathered numerous papers from various draws and cabinets, all the while acting as though puddles weren't forming on the titled floor.

May watched him from underneath her briefcase, attempting vainly to try and keep herself dry. "What was going on here?" She thought as she tried her best not to splash her sensible shoes. Instead of voicing this question she asked something different out loud. "I introduced myself, who might you be if its not too rude to ask?" She cried out; the rain was really making it difficult for her to hear anything.

The man suddenly looked up at her; first queerly, then with understanding. "Oh, do forgive me. I'm afraid I was so caught up with trying to get you all settled that I forgot my manners. I'm Mr. Wilth, an assistant to Mr. Wonka. I deal with public relations, of a sort." He explained with a chuckle to himself. He held out his hand and May shook it as politely as one could soaking wet and confused, keeping the other hand on the briefcase still above her head.

"A pleasure to meet you Mr. Wilth." She replied with a forced smile. She gave him her credentials and showed him her ID once more, which he read through extensively until deemed satisfied that they were genuine. He handed her some soggy paperwork and a dripping pen in return and pointed to his desk. "What are these?" She wondered with a blonde eyebrow raised.

"Precautions." He explained. "A legal binding contract to make sure you don't repeat anything you see, hear, smell, taste, or touch here to anyone else."

"But I must tell my superiors." May interjected. "It's my job."

"Within certain limits of course Ms. Sonnate. Mr. Wonka is trying to protect his individual rights and inventions." Mr. Wilth replied.

May looked at the sopping documents in her hand. "The FDA does all that. We don't give away secret ingredients or special brewing methods so long as they follow protocol."

Mr. Wilth gave her a funny look. "You'll find that this factory doesn't fall under that category." He stated bluntly. "And besides, we've had trouble before with government workers. You must understand, Mr. Wonka is willing to take his chances with the FDA if you refuse to sign the documents and we turn you away."

She stared at the documents once more. "And how do I know if I've stepped over Mr. Wonka's boundaries? You can't lead me around the entire time and expect me to look at only what you're showing me. It's against the law. This factory can't have anything to hide from me." She told him.

"You'll know if you've overstepped your boundaries." He reassured her. She paused, as if thinking this decision over in her mind.

Finally May shrugged and signed the documents on the desk as indicated, as best she could anyway, and handed them back to Mr. Wilth in a soaking ball of ink and paper. He nodded to her gratefully and filed them away in a black cabinet and pointed her to another door that was opposite the one she came through. "Straight ahead down the corridor. Since I can't show you about most of our doors are unlocked, however there will be guards posted about the factory in case you should get lost or whatnot." He stressed the word 'whatnot'.

May headed for the door and pulled it open gently, but before she could leave Mr. Wilth's voice stopped her. "A word to the wise Ms. Sonnate, this factory is like no other place on earth. It's easy to get lost or befuddled. Keep a sharp eye and mind open and if you should need anything simply call out my name."

"Uh, thank you." She replied slowly, unsure of whether to be scared, feel threatened, or be comforted by his words.

"You'll find that things in this factory can indeed hide from you on their own." He added at the last moment before the door shut by itself behind her back once again. She took two shaky steps forward and was blasted by an intense gust of warm air which to her surprise had dried her clothes, shoes, and hair almost immediately.

May stopped, unsure of whether to go on or to run back through the pouring rain and out the door. But something inside told her to press on, so she did. Whether it was sheer intrigue or a moment of bravery she couldn't tell.

End of Chapter One


	2. Chapters 2 and 3

Chapter Two: Initial Surprises

Long ago May had been an actress. Since she was really never one of the 'pretty girls' she was always forced to play the old ladies or the fat kids, but she really never minded. She had been good at what she did and was an experienced thespian, which unfortunately had carried over into her real life much to the dismay of loved ones. As much as she loved acting on stage, a large group of people would always send her into hysterics. She had a habit of being false around strangers, of being someone who she was sure that they would automatically accept and love. Not to mention she had always been good at hiding her true feelings or what she really thought.

This was one of those times.

As baffled as she was by the strangeness she had already encountered she kept a straight face and continued to follow the corridor. Along the way she had stopped and pulled out her notepad and her red pen and held them in her right hand, awaiting the chance to use them as she walked ahead. The corridor seemed to go on forever.

"He could have at least accompanied me to the first room." She muttered out loud to herself. She also wished that the man had handed her a dry copy of the documents she had signed, it would have been nice to read the fine print.

Finally she approached a rather harmless-looking door; simple doorknob, swirling woodwork, brass hinges. She glared at it suspiciously. There didn't seem to be a trick to it and so May declared it safe for her usage. She turned the handle and pulled open the door, the portal yielding her to the next room.

Yet beyond the door was not just another room, it was the second floor to some type of packaging and shipping department of the factory. She sighed inwardly; finally something that made sense. With a renewed sense of duty she straightened herself out and set her briefcase down, getting her pen and paper ready for action. The first step was to take a good look around and get a feel for how things worked in this place.

May found a set of twisting and turning staircases and followed them down to where machines were humming and the noise of work filled the large space. She could see workers from where she had been standing on the second floor, nothing struck her unusual about them yet. Not until she reached the ground floor did she see something extraordinary about the workers that were running about busily, something so absolutely fantastic and queer she had to take a moment to make sure her eyes were not playing tricks on her.

They were little people, their skin a shade different from any she had seen before and clothing absolutely outrageous and uncustomary. However, as May noticed, they all seemed the same so their funny-colored skin and clothing were uniformly normal. They went along their work packaging boxes of Wonka candy and overseeing production as if May hadn't been standing there with her mouth agape watching them. She shook her head, there had to have been over twenty of them in this one room alone!

One, a little taller than the other, approached her critically with his hands on his hips. "Can I help you?" He asked her. His voice was distorted only a drop and May was surprised by the demand in his question.

She wasn't sure what to say at first but since they seemed to be normally functioning people she tried to ignore the strangeness she was witnessing. She reached into her pocket and retrieved her ID. "May Sonnate. I'm with the FDA." She told him.

He reached forward and grabbed her ID. He stared at the picture on the card, then at May, then at the card again. He seemed confused by her appearance and she noticed that every once and a while the other workers would glance over at her, eyes filled with curiosity. "Everything seems to be in order." He said finally as he handed her ID back to her. "We were told an FDA employee would be arriving today."

"Normally we don't inform companies when we're about to do our inspections. This happens to be a special case." She explained. The scene felt like something out of a dream, yet it felt perfectly normal to be discussing such matters with a little off-colored man. In fact once she got past the initial shock, as May later told me, it was easy to ignore their differences.

"Well please, do continue." Said the small man who gave a curt bow and then went back to overseeing the packaging.

After this momentary distraction May found it difficult to remember how to do her job in the first place. She attempted to walk through the rows of conveyor belts and observe whether these workers were wearing the right type of gloves or had on aprons and hairnets, but the more she walked through the more curious looks she received. Clearly they were perceiving her the way she was perceiving them. Perhaps they were angry at her for disturbing their work. It was possible they resented her for questioning their techniques. Whatever the case she didn't exactly feel comfortable with the amount of staring going on.

But as I said before, May was a sensible person. She was not the dreamer she had been in her youth. Once she got past the mystery of the Wonka employees it was all business as usual, her red pen making furious marks on her papers. She scrutinized every part of the floor until she deemed this room to be inspected and went back upstairs to retrieve her briefcase. May did all of this without breaking a sweat. Once she had the briefcase back in her possession she approached the overseer and asked him politely if he could point her to the next door. He did so and she was off, gone through the door to her next destination.

End of Chapter Two

* * *

Chapter Three: The Gummy Room

"May?" I had started to ask. It was a couple weeks until September, a couple of weeks until we went our separate ways on to college and the adult world. We were sitting in the Boston Public Gardens watching the swans and ducks swim about the pond, our flip-flops lazing about on the sun-kissed tops of our feet, our hair pulled away from our faces to keep us cool. I had brought her out to the city for one last excursion before we had to say goodbye.

"Yes?" She replied with a grin. She swung her legs on the park bench and went back to looking at the couples strolling through the grass.

"Don't forget me. I couldn't stand it if you forgot me." I said.

"Oh Lisa, I would never forget you." She reassured me with a sigh. In those days she had so much potential, so much light in her eyes. She was going to help out kids and join her college's performance troupe. She was going to write short stories and poems and go to concerts. She was going to be somebody, and not only that, she was going to be somebody she liked.

"What if you out grow me?" I pressed on.

"I'd never grow out of you. It would be like out-growing of myself."

That answer had satisfied me then. Yet if I had known then how much May actually had grown out of her own self I wouldn't have believed her. We managed to stay together though, even through all the changes. Now don't get me wrong, I've changed too. We all change when we grow up. Our responsibilities increase drastically as our pleasures decrease and we find we have a lot less time to ourselves and ourselves alone. However most of us never really outgrow the person we once were. A little boy who bullied other little boys will grow up to be a big, mean, corporate bully or something similar. Likewise a dreamer will remain a dreamer, even through their adult life.

But somewhere along the way May Sonnate lost herself.

As she continued her journey deeper and deeper into the factory she was the same skeptical person she had been for the past ten years. She pushed aside the unfamiliar she had experienced so far and focused on the job at hand, even if the sheer peculiarity of the factory lingered on the outer ridges of her mind. So far she had been to the fudge room, the taffy room, the marshmallow room, and now she was on her way to the gummy room which she suspected was nothing like the first few rooms she had been in. Each department had been like another world apart, each completely different in style and decoration and smell, yet they all had a distinct feeling to them. It was this feeling that was crowding on the outskirts of her head.

She read the door in front of her. "GUMMY ROOM" was painted rather sloppily across in white letters which ran down the wood as if the person who had done the painting was extremely short. This didn't exactly flabbergast her. May opened the door and slipped in as she had done before, hoping to not be noticed. Things were always more natural when the workers didn't notice she was in the room with them.

However this time there were no workers, not a single one. The giant vats of sugared goo were close to the ground and as May approached them she saw that they were not very hot at all, in fact they looked like they were cool enough to congeal. Upon further inspection she came to the conclusion that the people who had been working there were at break at the present time, a lucky opportunity for her indeed. Almost immediately May got to work.

The more May continued the more difficult she found to be vague in her reports. Everything was arranged for the small workers; not scaled down but made in special ways. She had to take this into account when filing out the paperwork, but she was sure Mr. Wonka wouldn't want any information on these strange people leaked out into the public. What's worse, the more May thought about what she was seeing the more her disbelief struck her. The factory was absolutely insane in its twists and turns. She had nearly been lost and gone forever four times now. She was sure this was against some safety code or another.

After jotting down a few comments in the margins she put down her notepad and took out a pair of rubber gloves from her pocket. It was time to make sure the product was being made in a clean environment.

But before she did anything May noticed a brightly-colored panel that just needed to be looked at.

Perhaps it was a call-back to her younger days, or perhaps it was just curiosity, but May was hypnotized by the many buttons that adorned the silver panel. She knew they were the controls to the machinery, and she especially knew they were not to be fiddled with. With a sigh she stood her briefcase on the panel and returned to her duties, her responsibilities to her job overwhelming the childhood inquisitiveness that seemed to be jumping out of her today.

What happened next was all an accident but she told herself that she should have seen it coming anyway. She had tripped over a bucket, which in turn fell over and rolled into a broom, which then struck her briefcase, and her briefcase had fallen and pressed every single button on the silver panel. There was the eerie noise of humming that grew louder and louder all around her as she frantically looked about her. All of a sudden all the machinery had started up and before May could do a single thing she was knocked off her feet and sent backwards off of a platform into a vat of cooled goo.

She cried out when she hit the multi-colored slime before she sunk into the bottom like an anchor. Quickly May scrambled up and grasped the side of the slick vat, the goo coming up almost to her shoulders. The bottom was too slick for her to climb out of and she could feel the gummy congeal back around where she stood. May gasped and tried her best to wipe away the muck from her glasses, which miraculously had stayed on her head, and away from her mouth and nose. She yelled for help feeling like an absolute fool, that is until she realized that the vat was actually moving along a type of conveyor belt.

With a scream she saw what awaited her and her vat - a huge open fire that would once again turn the goo into a boiling-hot liquid. Wishing that the little workers were on their way back she screamed and yelled and cried out for help, all the while watching as her vat made its way closer and closer to the roaring fire.

"Help me! Somebody please!" May shrieked at the same time vainly trying to pull herself up. She never had much of an upper body strength so her attempts to pull herself up by her arms only were just that - in vain. She attempted again once more, this time almost getting her upper torso over the side of the vat before she slipped back into the slime. However she noticed that when she fell the vat had rocked back and forth almost like a Ferris Wheel seat would. With a small but brilliant plan in her mind she jumped up quickly to test her hypothesis. She grabbed the edge of the vat and pushed forward and then fell back, sending the vat into a steady rock.

May jumped up again and then fell backwards, the rock of the vat growing increasingly higher and faster. She repeated these actions of jumping up then falling back until her legs and arms were beginning to become sore. She made the mistake of looking over her shoulder at the row of vats before her and cried out when she realized that in two more vats she would be boiled alive. Now there was a hurried urgency in the way she threw herself against the sides of the vat.

She jumped back again, this time the goo had begun to spill over the side and on to the floor below. She looked over: the vat next to hers had gone over the fire. With a yell she dove forward as fast as she could and hit the side with all the force she could muster.

May and twenty gallons of gummy tumbled out of the large vat and on to the slick floor, the rush of all that sugar sliding May past the numerous astonished little workers that had heard the machinery running and her screaming and had rushed over to help. They gawked at her as she slid all the way past them and out the open door. She hit and bounced off of the wall of the corridor and then continued on some three yards down the hallway. She would have kept going too the force was so great of the sugary slime, that is if she hadn't been stopped by a pair of brown shoes and striped trousers.

From on the floor she looked up at the pair of normal-sized legs that had been running in her direction until she had slid right into them. Attached to the legs was a torso, and arms, and a head. Or so she thought. Her vision had been impaired by the gallons of gummy that had covered her entire head and body. May brought her hands up and flicked off the goo from her face, the candy making a squishing sound as it hit the clean walls of the factory. She focused her gaze on the man that had stopped her from slipping all the way down the corridor as he handed her a handkerchief.

"Thank you." She said as she cleaned off her glasses and face. Finally she could see who the pair of striped pants belonged to. May handed the handkerchief back to him as she held the walls and helped herself up from the floor.

"Government workers, always making a mess of things." He said disdainfully as he pocketed the gummed-up cloth in his deep, purple jacket. He frowned at May and shook his head, his wild hair bouncing underneath the matching top hat balanced on his head. "And you never stay around long enough to help clean up." He added.

"I'm so sorry about the mess. It was an accident." She attempted to apologize.

"Of course it was an accident. No one ever purposely gets caught in a vat of liquid sugar, not unless they're awfully desperate for gummy bears of course. But then again no one has ever tried and succeeded in getting gummy bears that way so I suppose you're either completely mad or just clumsy. But I do believe you're sorry, although not as sorry as all the Oompa-Loompas will be when they're cleaning up my factory floors because of you. "

He said this all very rapidly and May had to pause a moment in order to take it all in. There was so much to address in this statement, but May thought she address the most pressing one on her mind. "Your factory floors?" She repeated.

"Yes, my factory floors. Not yours or theirs or his or hers or cousin Carl's, but mine thank-you-very-much." He said matter-of-factly. "What a curious person you are." He muttered to himself as he looked at May from toe to hair. "I suppose all you government people are just like this."

"Mr. Wonka?" She inquired. He just had to be the elusive candy-maker himself, he just had to be. Even though she had never seen a picture of him or even heard a description for that matter, his manner of speech and dress fit the role of Willy Wonka perfectly.

End of Chapter Three


	3. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Getting Un-Gooed

The man in the top hat stared at May queerly. "Yes?" He replied, his head at a slight angle. May's eyes widened and she tried her best to straighten herself out but the president of Wonka Candies didn't seem to care. She held out her hand but Wonka ignored it. A little confused by the informality she was being shown she pulled back her hand and noticed much to her vexation that she still had her gloves on. "My name is May Sonnate, I'm with the FDA. I apologize once again for the mess and inconvenience I have caused you Mr. Wonka." She murmured. "I was doing my inspection and I accidentally started up the machines."

May hoped he would believe her, she never had an accident on the job before and wondered what she should do next. "Yes, I know." He said to her disapprovingly. Wonka seemed angry and even angrier as he stepped past her and went to inspect the damage. "I heard the commotion from the licorice-twisting room and came running." He explained over his shoulder. May followed him carefully, peeling off her gloves like a wet bathing suit.

Inside the gummy room was total chaos. Little people, or Oompa-Loompas as May recalled, were running about every which way trying to get the mess cleaned up. She wanted desperately to address Wonka about these workers and that funny name he had called them but she was mortified at the disorder she had caused. May stood behind Mr. Wonka and tried her best to be a stoic as possible when in plain truth she was utterly confused and embarrassed. However as any person who is reading this tale can tell, May Sonnate had no reason to be embarrassed. Everything was purely accidental and our main character was almost killed, but May did not come to these conclusions at the time.

"But what now?" she thought to herself. Wonka stood silently in front of her, his head still tipped, his hands resting on an embroidered cane, his eyes overseeing the clean up. An Oompa-Loompa approached Wonka with May's discarded notepad and handed it to him. Miraculously it had been left un-gooed.

May's heart nearly skipped a beat as Wonka turned to her. She inwardly gasped, Wonka couldn't read her report - he can't! However Wonka merely handed the clipboard back to her with a nod and motioned for another Oompa-Loompa to grab her briefcase. "You're not even halfway through my factory." He pointed out. Behind him the tipped vat was being right-sided loudly.

"I suppose you want to send me home and reschedule the rest of this inspection." May assumed.

Wonka looked appalled. "Heavens no!" He cried white-faced. "And have the innards of my factory poked at and prodded again? No- I think you'll just have to finish up today."

May was dumbfounded. "I-I'm a mess Mr. Wonka!" She stammered. The gummy was beginning to congeal on her clothing and hair; it was not comfortable.

For the first time Wonka smiled at May, and she couldn't help but feel charmed. "Worry not, we can take care of that. Follow me." He said, stepping lively out of the room. Before May had time to ask she was handed her briefcase and was pushed along Mr. Wonka's path.

The FDA employee followed the elusive candy-maker through the winding corridors and strange paths of the factory, along the way being treated to the dancing and jumping about that Wonka did as he walked. He twirled along just like his expansive factory and skipped every fourth or fifth step or did a spin at a corner or a door he wanted to point out to May. He did a lot of talking, most of it she couldn't catch, but what she did manage to hear utterly confused and fascinated her.

"And this is where I keep the pepper for my peppermints and the canes for my candy canes-" The man seemed to go on and on about things that didn't make a lick of sense to May. As he pointed out different doors and hallways she felt as though she was on an acid trip through Wonderland and hoped that Mr. Wonka wouldn't dance his way out of her sight for intense fear of being lost. "Hurry hurry! Keep up!" He would occasionally call to her if it seemed as though May was lingering a second too long on some door or window. "A short-cut my dear, we're taking a short cut!" He reassured her even though May hadn't said a thing.

When Wonka finally stopped at a corridor crossroad May nearly ran into him again. She glared at him and waited for the man to pick a hallway. Instead he just stood there, an extremely puzzled look on his face. His brilliant eyes darted from one hallway to the next and he leaned on his cane as he peered down each path as if to find a clue to where they each lead. May did the same behind him but obviously wasn't seeing the same thing Wonka was; the corridors were identical to each other.

"Hmmm." He concluded finally. He turned to May and her multi-colored self and waved a hand in the direction of the two corridors. "Pick one." He told her simply.

"Pick one?" She repeated incredulously. Her job was getting seriously complicated.

"Yes." Mr. Wonka nodded. "Yes Ms. Sonnate, lead the way and I shall follow."

May hoped later that her mouth wasn't open in shock when he had said this to her. She swallowed and raised an eyebrow. "Is this some type of joke Mr. Wonka? I don't even know where I am or where I'm going."

"Those are major problems Ms. Sonnate. I suggest you take some time off from work to figure those two very important things out, but for now I would like you to pick a hallway." Wonka said. There was no hint in his voice to suggest a joke, in fact he seemed absolutely serious. May wanted to scream at the man or grab him by the coat and shake some common sense into him but he was already being more than understanding, especially since she probably cost him thousands of dollars by ruining his gummy room.

"OK." She said slowly, eyes drifting from the mild expression of Mr. Wonka to the crossroads in front of them. She approached the corridors and inspected them as Wonka had before, but still she saw no difference. May realized that she was just going to have to choose a path blindly and so with some hesitation pointed to the hallway on her left. "That one." She said as she turned to him, her hand still pointed in the direction of the corridor.

Wonka nodded and motioned for her to lead the way. May shrugged and entered the hallway, the light footsteps of the candy man skipping along behind her. They walked further and further into the hallway together, his scampering and her clickida-clicking, a thousand thoughts racing through the very confused woman's head. Just as she was beginning to wonder what in the hell Wonka was planning suddenly the floor dropped out from beneath her feet and she was sent screaming down what seemed to be a long smooth ramp or even a slide.

She continued to scream as she slid further down into the darkness, both hands trying vainly to grasp on to something to slow her having since lost her briefcase and clipboard in the shock of being hurled down unexpectedly. May continued to slide, but not straight down. The path twirled around much like everything in Wonka's factory and little lights suspended from the walls brightened up the path in front. Finally May could see what was ahead of her and what she was traveling down on, which turned out to be the very floor of the corridor itself.

Suddenly from above her on one of the loops she had already embarked upon came a yell, but not of surprise or like herself, terror. No, this yell was being cried out as if the person was on a rollercoaster. It whooped and yelled and laughed and it was then May understood that the man behind her was Willy Wonka himself. Well if he was having a good time then she figured she had nothing to worry about as the slide bounced her along and brought her closer to an unknown destination.

Finally there was a bright light at the end of the tunnel and May came careening out like rocket, flying right into a pile of strategically-placed pillows headfirst. She rolled over on top of the pillows and stared at the ceiling with her mind absolutely blank, her breath coming in short little pants. The yelling that was behind her had continued to grow louder and closer until it was interrupted by a, "Oomph!" as Mr. Wonka was thrown from the slide into the pile of pillows with May. He had landed almost exactly beside her.

Both May and Mr. Wonka sat up, Wonka's hair even more untamed than it had been before. He had lost the hat that had partly hidden the wild curls on the ride down. He grinned at May and laughed, jumping up to retrieve his top hat and cane as they came down the slide along with May's clipboard and briefcase. He picked up his hat and plunked it on his head unceremoniously.

"Oh, I was hoping you'd pick the left corridor! I don't get to do that as often as I'd like." He cried happily. Wonka looked down at May, still sitting in the pillows, still covered in gummy. "Well come on then!" He said with his hands on his hips. Without warning he grabbed his cane and continued out through another door.

May stared after him for a moment before once again jumping up, snatching up her things, and hurrying after the lunatic candy-man.

They finally reached their destination which was rather a relief to May who had been expecting something extravagant or odd or a grand mix of both judging from previous experience. The room was mostly white, long, and plain. There were odd things here and there, a large automobile-like machine in particular caught her eyes, but besides all that she didn't see anything that would clear her off all the saccharine slime. She turned to Wonka who stared back at her with his oh-so-amused blue eyes

"Now here is where I leave you." He said to her. May attempted to interject but Wonka placed a finger to her lips. "No no, don't be sad my little government pet. I have much to do and this little excursion has cost me much time." He removed his finger and pointed his embroidered cane towards a large, alcove-like portal. "Simply walk through that and you'll find yourself cleaner than you were before you entered my factory."

"Walk through the portal." May told herself.

"Yes, yes! Now you've got it. And from here continue through the door behind us, it should take you to where you need to go." Wonka said as he stepped to the side and gently urged May forward. "No more accidents thank-you and please stay out of trouble Ms. Sonnate."

When May went to turn around to thank him he had vanished, leaving nothing of his presence except for the soft echoes of a shutting door. She sighed and continued to walk towards the portal, mildly distraught because she believed she hadn't been able to make the best impression on the man. Even when she was younger May hated the thought of someone not liking her. She didn't know it yet, but there was more to it this time. The strange factory was doing something to her, breaking something in her that had been turned to stone many years ago. The complexities and bizarre nature almost reminded her of a dream she might have had when she was young.

She shook her head and placed her things down before approaching the portal. Once again there were was much staring and figuring out done by May before she decided that the portal was trustworthy. She didn't see how it would clean her, perhaps it would spray her with water. There was only one way of finding out and she hoped that it wouldn't end up injuring her.

May took a step through with her eyes shut tightly and ended up on the other side of the arch, eyes still closed. She was almost afraid to look down. What if this was some cruel revenge on her by Wonka for her previous accident? What if he was secretly watching her step through the archway like a fool expecting a miracle laundry service? Suppose he was laughing at her? Mocking her?

"But I can't just stand here with my eyes closed." She finally told herself, agreeing that she'd look even stupider standing still for an hour.

May opened one eye slowly, then the other, then looked down. She gasped and felt her suit, it was completely clean! Spotless even! In spite of herself she laughed, not out of amazement, no not that yet, but out of her own silliness. May walked around the portal (afraid that if she stepped back through it would reverse the process) and grabbed her things once again.

Before completely leaving the room she took a few notes on what she saw and experience so far and examined the automobile that had caught her fancy when first entering the room. Absentmindedly she checked her watch and did a double-take when she saw the time. It was almost eleven! She only had six hours until she was required to leave the factory. With a hurried pace she ran to the door Wonka had directed her to take and flung it open. She was almost out into the hallway when she looked back as if someone had tapped on her shoulder.

May finally saw the letters above the alcove that read, "Wonka Wash" cheerfully. Her eyebrows went up and she smiled to herself for the first time that day.

End of Chapter Four


End file.
